1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2023 1.2 The mandate to NHS England sets out the strategic goals that the government has set for NHS England in the year ahead. The 2022-23 mandate was published on 31 March 2022. It includes objectives on recovery of wider NHS services impacted by the pandemic, and on further delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan and related wider government commitments. Further information on the performance indicators is set out in the department’s accompanying letter. 1.3 The objective on recovery reinforces the targets set for recovery of elective and cancer waiting times standards in the NHS Delivery Plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care (the ‘Elective Recovery Plan’) (see also the response to recommendation 2). This includes ensuring that no one (aside from a small number of specific specialties or due to patient choice) waits longer than two years for elective care by July 2022, and that by March 2024 75% of patients urgently referred by their GP for suspected cancer are diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days. 1.4 The Secretary of State will keep NHS England’s progress against the overall mandate under review throughout the year and will lay in Parliament and publish an assessment of NHS England’s performance in 2022-23, including in respect of the mandate, after the end of the financial year.